Enterprise information technology (IT) systems often are used to manage and process business data. To do so, a business enterprise may use various application programs running on one or more enterprise IT systems. Application programs may be used to process business transactions, such as taking and fulfilling customer orders, providing supply chain and inventory management, performing human resource management functions, and performing financial management functions. Application programs also may be used for analyzing data, including analyzing data obtained through transaction processing systems. In many cases, application programs used by a business enterprise are developed by a commercial software developer for sale to, and use by, many business enterprises.
An application program may be designed to meet the specific requirements of the environment in which the application program is operating. Some commercial application programs may be designed for use by many business enterprises that are in a particular industry or in a particular geographic region. In some cases, a more-generalized commercial application program may be modified for more specialized use by many business enterprises. Such modifications may be performed by the same business enterprise that developed the more-generalized commercial application program, or such modifications may be performed by a different business enterprise, which may be referred to as a “business partner” of the business enterprise that developed the more-generalized commercial application program. In some cases, modifications may be made to the application program to meet the specific requirements of business enterprises in a particular industry or a particular geographic region, or to meet the specific requirements of a particular business enterprise or a particular department in a business enterprise. Examples of such modification include customization of the data model, the process model, or the user interface of the application. Modification of an application program may require knowledge of the data model, the process model, and/or the user interface of the application program. Modification of an application program also may require knowledge of programming techniques used to develop the application program.